Category: Fiction

A couple of enterprising capybara made headlines a few weeks ago, here in Toronto, by escaping from the High Park zoo and disappearing into the surrounding greenery. My theory is that they simply dressed up as tourists and mingled with the crowd, and ambled out of the zoo enclosure unchallenged and unspotted.

One of the capybara – we shall call him Stupid – was recaptured a while later, but capybara number two has remained on the lam – until now, that is. Clever Boy was picked up this morning – according to the authorities, near Grenadier Pond. But that is a cover up, I know: Clever Boy was really caught lurking incognito on a patio on Roncies, smoking a cigar and reading the newspaper.

One of the things one tries to do with words, I think, when writing fiction, is to convey a sense of a world – of many worlds, perhaps – behind the immediate reality, or surface meaning. A gesture towards the immanent rather than the obvious. This is something that distinguishes the great photographs, too, I suspect, from the merely ‘good’ or ‘excellent.’ Easy to say, as a reader or critic; much harder to pull off oneself, of course. And who is to say when one has succeeded?

Perhaps this is what drives the ‘inner critic’ that leads some writers, both new and established, to write and rewrite and rewrite again, till every word is burnished. Which is all to the good – except when the pesky voice of the inner critic stands in the way of getting the work done in the first place.

Which is one of the writing traps I tend to fall into, at least with fiction: writing and rewriting the early bits to the point at which I get bogged down and fail to persist beyond the first 30 or 40 pages. It’s a liability, or disability, which Janet Burroway and co. usefully point out, in their standard text for college and university courses on creative writing, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft.

So here is what I’m doing: setting aside (for now) the endless novel I’ve been writing and getting bogged down in – am I on the 4th draft? or the 5th or 6th? I forget – and starting afresh with one that has seen only a partial start, and so far at least very little belabouring, and pushing on with it, so many words per day, without significant re-reading or revision. Get the first draft done, in other words – put the writer first – and let the damned inner critic come along and clean up the mess afterwards. First drafts are always horrible, all the great writers say so – the thing is to get the bloody thing done, so you can move on from it.

That’s the theory, anyway. I’ll let you know how it works out in practice.

Meanwhile, here is a photo: I’ve given it a name, The Bloor Cinema. It’s the first proper photo I took with the Leica Digilux, which I bought to replace the Leica C which was stolen in Namibia. I’ve tried with this image to suggest something about the cinema, it’s sense of mystery and anticipation perhaps, its louche luxury, that sense of something at once attractive and possibly forbidden. See if it works for you.

My god, is writing a pain. I mean real writing, like writers do. Like novels and stuff. Frankly I don’t know how they do it.

Well, here’s how they do it, so far as I can tell. They write. That’s it. They sit down at the fucking computer, and they write!

The only way to do it is to do it. No other way works, apparently.

And so – after long dark nights of despair, after fantasies of writing, promises to self about writing, fidgeting and faffing instead of writing, I have (yes, I know) dusted off, metaphorically speaking, the god-damned, hated, shoved-into-a-pile of yellowing printouts, its high-time-you-abandoned-this novel. And made a fresh beginning.

It’s one of the things I always promised myself: I will not die before I have published a novel. At this rate I’ll be here till the next millennium.

Sarah turns her head, as if to shake it, but she is fast asleep already.

At the bedroom door David hesitates, looks back at her, a small warm mound under the blankets. Then he turns out the light.

In the kitchen Margaret is clearing up after dinner. “There’s still some wine left,” she says. Her back to him. “The glasses are on the table.”

“Should I top you up?”

Her voice, garbled. Something or other.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said, are you going to have some?”

“Maybe. Probably not. I might have a whisky.”

“You have what you like. I’m not going to do all of this. You can finish up in the morning.”

Margaret is shoving things noisily into the dishwasher. David watches for a moment. Approaches from behind.

“Leave it,” he says. “Come and sit down with me.”

“I will, in a minute. Let me just finish doing this.”

His hands, of their own free will, have begun quantifying the volumes of her belly, her ass, her hips. They come to rest at her waist again. “The dishwasher can wait, can’t it?” Her precise form and mass, breathing, silent. She is here, but not present. “Margaret,” he murmurs. His hands drift upwards to her breasts, sensing their perfect shape, their weight, their solemn fullness. He nuzzles her neck.

“I need a few more minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Go pour yourself a drink. I’ll be there when I’m done.”

“I’ll top you up,” he tells her.

The living room is dark, but there is still light in the walled garden, and pale stars over the horizon. The french doors are open. The trace of Margaret’s roses hangs on the night air. All I want is you, you only. The question is, do you want me also? He wonders about that, sometimes. Whether she wants him. She is always distracted. There is no-one to blame, it is a question of circumstances. The two of them working, him away so much. Having a child, certainly – that has to be part of it. The simple fact of being worn out most of the time.